by Edward Ellis, Special Correspondent
Lions and tigers and clowns, oh my!
The two-mile-long trucks and trailers caravan of the magnificent Clyde Beatty-Cole Brothers Circus – billing itself as the “world’s largest” – rolled into New Bern from Kinston on Saturday, October 1, 1960. Crowds came early to see the roustabouts hoist the acres of striped tents high aloft on the fairgrounds bounded by Broad Street, First Street, and Pollock Steet.
In town under the auspices of the New Bern Junior Chamber of Commerce, the promoters boasted a show “Gleaming and Glittering with Gold and Wondrous Surprises for Young and Old.” And “A Triumph of Colossal Achievements! 150 Performers. 200 Wild Animals.” The “young” paid one buck for admission at two p.m. or eight p.m. while older attendees were dinged $1.90 each. Tickets were sold at Clark’s Drug Store at the northwest corner of Middle St. and Broad St.
Carloads of clowns, 15 elephants, giraffes, and a “blood-sweating hippopotamus” were major attractions along with Pinto de Oro, the “radiant star of the swinging, swirling high trapeze.” The Astounding Gallaso stood on one finger. The team of Seitz and Mendes thrilled the audience from a high wire. A scantily-clad lady in fishnet stockings somersaulted on horseback.
But the unchallenged star of the show was the world-renowned Clyde Beatty. “In Person! Battling 48 Lions and Bengal Tigers!” Inside a large steel cage, Beatty cracked his whip, fired blank cartridges from his pistol, and wielded a chair to make the exotic roaring cats mind their manners.
Beatty (1903-1965) was one of the biggest celebrities ever to visit the Colonial Capital. Famed from radio, television, and the movies – with his very own star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame – he was well-known by every adult and child of the era as a handsome, fearless “tamer” of hippos, bears, lions, tigers, cougars, and hyenas.
It was quite a show. The child in this writer still remembers that day.